ABC News announces details for third Democratic primary debate

(ABC News) – The upcoming third Democratic primary debate, hosted by ABC News in partnership with Univision and slated for Sept. 12 and 13 in Houston, will feature four moderators, ABC News announced Wednesday.

The debate will be held at Texas Southern University, a public, historically black university, and will air across ABC, Univision with a Spanish translation, and on ABC News Live. The streaming channel is available on the ABCNews.com website and apps, as well as Hulu Live, The Roku Channel, Facebook Watch, AppleTV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube, Apple News and Twitter.

If 10 or fewer candidates are certified by the Democratic National Committee to participate, the debate will take place on one night.

If more than 10 candidates qualify under the rules, the debate will take place over two nights. For the two-night scenario, ABC News in accordance with the DNC will hold a selection event on Aug. 29 to randomly assign the candidates to a night. The format of the debate will be one minute and 15 seconds for direct responses to questions and 45 seconds for rebuttals.

So far, 10 candidates have qualified for the third round of debates, according to an ABC News analysis of publicly released information and pending verification by the DNC after the qualifying deadline, including:

Former Vice President Joe Biden

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro

California Sen. Kamala Harris

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang

Earlier this year, prior to the first Democratic debates, the DNC announced more stringent qualifying rules for the fall debates in September and October. Details for the October debate have not yet been announced.

In order to qualify for the September debate, candidates must cross both the polling and grassroots funding thresholds. Candidates must receive 2% or more support in at least four national polls, or polls conducted in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and/or Nevada and publicly released between June 28 and August 28.

Any candidates’ four qualifying polls must be sponsored by one or more of the following organizations approved by the DNC: The Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, the Des Moines Register, Fox News, Monmouth University, NBC News, The New York Times, National Public Radio, Quinnipiac University, University of New Hampshire, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Washington Post, and Winthrop University. They also must be conducted by different organizations or — if by the same organization — must be in different geographical areas.

Candidates must also receive donations from at least 130,000 unique donors over the course of the election cycle, with a minimum of 400 unique donors per state in at least 20 states. Qualifying donations must be received by 11:59 p.m. on Aug. 28 for the September debate.

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